CT cops watching for outside agitators
Two of the state’s top cops on Tuesday said they are encouraged by the generally peaceful Connecticut protesters, but they have to be prepared for possible violence and crime that has occurred in many cities around the country.
New Haven Police Chief Otoniel Reyes and State Police Col. Stavros Mellekas, who joined Gov. Ned Lamont’s daily news briefing in the state Capitol, said they are also concerned that people from out-of-state could come to Connecticut to step up the level of violence.
“You have the protesters that are upset in these disturbing times and you have agitators within the group,” Mellekas said. “The protesters, they are against that. We want to identify those parties and address it accordingly. So the protesters, we want to listen to them and let them express their concerns and work with them. The agitators, they go toward looting or rioting, that’s unacceptable.”
Reyes said that it appears some people around the country are crossing state borders to cause problems and violence. His department is working with federal authorities to prepare.
“If we can distinguish those folks, we can do some proactive work to arrest those folks if we indeed identify them, because they do not represent the community,” Reyes said.
Community leaders, Reyes said, are not happy that people from out of the area might be here to try to take advantage of the tension by stoking violence. “It does not represent a majority of our respective communities,” he said. “It’s important that we work to identify who the agitators are and we’re taking proactive measures.”
He said it hasn’t happened yet but there are some indications online about intentions to loot stores. “We have not experienced that and we hope not to,” Reyes said. “We’re not ignorant to the fact that there is an intent by certain agitators and individuals to turn to civil unrest.”
Reyes notices that there is a generational shift in the makeup of the protesters, with many young people, with whom he wants to engage in conversation and collaboration to lower the chance of violence and involve them in the state’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think this is the time where we capitalize on the relationships that we’ve built, the long-standing relationships we’ve built with the cross-section of members in our communities, not just faith leaders but our civic leaders and our young folks,” Reyes said. “We have seen that many of the protesters are young people and they’re looking for a different type of change. They are looking to be heard. So we are working with our youth organizations pro-actively to engage these young folks. I think we need to listen.”
“Something you have to remember is that all our troopers are human beings,” Mellekas told reporters. “They have a heart, use common sense and decency. So we encourage independent thinking and using reasonable logic.” He described an incident Monday in which a State Police supervisor joined protesters in prayer during a highway protest in Hartford that could have become dangerous because of traffic.
Lamont says demonstrators want “accountability and give you confidence that our police, state and municipal, are there representing you, representing the community, because public health and public safety is based on trust.” That’s why he has made efforts to make hiring decisions that reflect the diversity of the state, he said.
On a day where for the first time since March there were a single-digit increase in fatalities — 8, bringing the total to 3,972 dead in the coronavirus pandemic — Lamont also announced that the state will partner in a blood-surveillance study of 1,400 random state residents to see if they have developed antibodies, a sign of prior infection and possible immunity to COVID-19.
By the early evening, Lamont had issued an executive order allowing child care programs to increase from the current 30 kids, to 50 without having to get approval from the state Office of Early Childhood. But providers of care for more than 50 children need the approval.